Performance: Updating the Vocabulary

Robyn Orlin, Agnietė Lisičkinaitė, Boris Charmatz

Language is living matter, and certain words take on different meanings over time. The term ‘performance’ is one such word, first coined by the Dadaists of the early 20th century, and later adopted in the field of dance. And since anniversary years are often a time for reflection, to celebrate the CN D’s 20th anniversary we’ve asked three artists who are part of the fall program the same open-ended question: what does ‘performance’ mean to you today? South African choreographer Robyn Orlin, Lithuanian artist Agnietė Lisičkinaitė, and French choreographer Boris Charmatz all played along.

“There is no definition of performance that does not include the audience.” – Robyn Orlin

A movement coming from the world of contemporary art can be called ‘performance’ but in live performance and dance we also use this term, and that’s what I’m going to talk about. Performance is something we particularly need to preserve, because I think the theater is a place that’s charged with positivity. It’s where you come to watch the same show, where you form a group or a community. Today, sharing an experience like this is becoming increasingly rare... and this has accelerated since Covid. Audiences aren’t coming back to theaters. We’re in a kind of generalized lethargy. That’s why performances are so important for keeping these spaces open and alive.

I don’t know if I can speak for the dancers, as I don’t really perform myself anymore, but I think a performer needs the performance in order to share what they’re saying with their body, or what’s being said with other people. You’ll often hear them say that tonight’s audience was “cold” or “warm”. They need live performance, they need feedback on what they’ve been working on. Performance is what they have to offer. For a choreographer, performance means what you and the dancers have been able to come up with together to create that honest, emotional, and generous moment with the audience. In either case, performance has everything to do with the audience. There’s no definition of performance that doesn’t include the audience.

A dancer can ‘perform’ in their bedroom, and get something out of it in the way of physical accomplishment, but I’m not sure they will find anything emotionally satisfying. That’s not to say that performance art only takes place in theaters and on dedicated stages. You can perform in a supermarket, a railway station, in a crowd, or among the public itself – it all depends on how the space is used.

When the CN D opened its new premises in Pantin in 2004, my team and I invaded the entire building and its surroundings. We were everywhere. I remember a lot of people thought I didn’t realize what this building represented [Editor’s Note: the CN D is currently housed in a former municipal administrative center.] For me, it was all about celebrating the arrival of dance in a neighborhood that, at the time, had no relation to the art form. So I asked myself this question: How was the CN D going to be present in its immediate environment? Was it going to become another elitist organization, or was it going to integrate itself into the neighborhood and its communities? Twenty years later, I feel the connection has been made.

“In all cases, performance does something.” – Agnietė Lisičkinaitė

What is performance? Here’s what I can say today, with no guarantee that I won’t change my mind tomorrow: for me, art is a tool for change, whether social or personal. But I can also imagine that it can be, more simply, a form that has an impact on us, that makes us think differently. In all cases, performance has an effect; it does something. That’s why I’m always trying to get art out of institutions, and perform outside the studio.

With Hands Up, I not only invite audiences to hold their hands in the air, but also to walk through the city with me, carrying a sign. It’s a physical act, a gesture of surrender and protest. As a performer, I often feel like a kind of document collecting different voices, because the stories I choose are not mine, or not only mine. I often feel a kind of urgency to spread these messages.

I sometimes refer to my performative work as ‘activism’ but that seems a little too strong. Admittedly, I do street art that addresses societal issues such as current wars, exile, misogyny, and so on. But the fact remains that I come from the art world. I don’t define myself as an activist, but as a performer who uses the body, dance, and theater as a means of expression.

It’s weird for me to try to define performance, or what I do, because one day I was arrested in front of the Belarusian embassy in Vilnius while doing a performative action there. The police report stated that they had found me there unconscious, falling to the ground and convulsing. I contested the report with a two-page letter explaining what contemporary dance means to me, explaining, for example, the importance of using the floor. The limits of art are not so easy to define, and I like to think that it’s always possible to shift them.

“Performing is not knowing the answers, it’s taking a step back.” – Boris Charmatz

If I had the answers to this question, I don’t know whether I’d have stopped dancing or performing... Sometimes I have the feeling that when I think I know what it’s going to be, I’m actually taking a step back. Today, for example, I’m speaking from the old cinema in Wuppertal, which has become the historic studio of the Pina Bausch company I’ve been directing for three years now. At the time, I was preparing to move to Lille, to try and simply develop my ideas and a project called Terrain, an art space without walls and without a roof. I still want to do it, but I let myself be moved towards hybridization.

To put it more concretely, performance for me at the moment means taking over a role in Café Müller, imagining a new show with the dancers from Terrain, working on a project like Cercles with 200 students and professionals of all generations… But the most difficult performance I’m currently involved in is that of running the company: making decisions about Pina’s repertoire, speaking in German to a board of directors, answering journalists in a language that’s not my own. If someone had told me three years ago that this could be a performance, I would surely have laughed!

In this case, I’m talking about ‘performance’ but I often prefer the word ‘dance’, because I’ve decided to be a dancer and I’m very attached to it. Although I may have curated exhibitions or used the word ‘happening’ [Editor’s Note: a term most commonly used in contemporary or experimental art] in certain projects, it’s basically a dancer’s imagination that drives me. If my answer is so plural, it’s because I’m not very hung up on definitions. However, I do like to have a broad vocabulary. When I come to present Emmitouflé at the CN D, I get asked “What is it?” – Is it performance art? Is it a series of short shows? Is it a shared moment? – I don’t know, it could be all of these things. What I do know is that I’d like to ‘do’ Emmitouflé: to be outside, in the middle of November, dressed warmly and all together to withstand the cold.

Interviews by Léa Poiré

Léa Poiré is an independent journalist based in Paris and Lyon. After studying choreography and being in charge of the dance section and co-editor in chief for Mouvement magazine, she is now working in cultural journalism and media education. She collaborates regularly with choreographer Mette Edvardsen as a researcher and teaches critical writing and editing at the University of Saint-Etienne. She is also the editor of CN D magazine.

...How in salt deserts it is possible to blossom…
Choreography: Robyn Orlin with Garage Dance Ensemble and uKhoiKhoi
From November 27 to 30 at Chaillot - Théâtre national de la danse as part of the Festival d’Automne

How to thank flowers for their fleeting abundance
Choreography: Robyn Orlin
December 2 at Musée de l’Orangerie
as part of the Danse dans les Nymphéas program

A piece about water without water
Choreography: Robyn Orlin
February 5-9, 2025 at the Philharmonie de Paris 

Hands up
Choreography: Agnietė Lisičkinaitė
October 19 and 20 at Théâtre de la Ville, Paris

Workshop with Agnietė Lisičkinaitė
From October 14 to 25 at CN D, Pantin
as part of the Camping Pantin festival

Emmitouflé 
Choreography: Boris Charmatz 
December 7 at Jardin du 19 mars 1962, Canal de l’Ourcq, Pantin 
with CN D  

Somnole
Choreography: Boris Charmatz
November 14 and 15 at the Triangle, Cité de la Danse with the Théâtre National de Bretagne
November 7 at La Barcarolle, Saint-Omer 
October 7 and 8 at Phénix, scène nationale de Valenciennes 

Aatt enen tionon + harrows
Choreography: Boris Charmatz
October 11 and 12 at Bozar, Bruxelles, Belgium

10000 gestes
Choreography: Boris Charmatz
October 17 at L’Arsenal, Metz 

étrangler le temps
Choreography: Boris Charmatz
January 21 and 22, 2025 at the Maison de la Culture d’Amiens